Sunday, 10 January 2010

Grime writing (reverse graffiti)

From the November 23, 2009 Financial Times: "Paul 'Moose' Curtis [above] founded Symbollix in 2003, after his particular brand of 'grime writing' ??? creating pictures and slogans by selectively cleaning the dirt off walls and pavements ??? caught the attention of corporate marketing departments."

I came up the idea of grime writing orreverse graffiti 10 years ago, while trying to promote a record that myrecord label was about to release. There was no marketing money, so Iwent to a tunnel in Leeds with a friend who was a great graffitiartist, and in seconds made a huge piece ??? just using an old rag andhis fingers to write in the dirt. We had created legal graffiti. No onehad ever invested any time in these tunnels and our work shone likechrome.

After that revelation, I carried on writing on walls as a meansof self-expression. It was unique at the time. And it began to dawn onme that I could make money out of it. I had worked as a technician onevents for the launch of the Xbox and showed it to the people I workedfor ??? they programmed it into the launch a few months later. That???swhen my hobby turned into a business. But I don???t refer to my work asreverse graffiti any more because of the negative connotations attachedto graffiti.